Why does Garfield hate Mondays? It's not like he had a job, had to get up and go to work. I don't even remember Jon having a job, really. A Monday to Garfield should be just like a Sunday or a Tuesday. It doesn't really make sense, they're just pandering to us working workers who would feel the empathy.
Plans to get chickens over the weekend fell through, which was probably a good thing as the coop isn't quite finished yet. Still needs wheels, a roof, and the window.
Saw a bumper sticker today that said, "Midwives, they help people out!" which just slayed me. Think about it, it's funny. I wonder if the car belongs to the midwife I talked to in February, before I knew I was a special case (and that I'd lose that pregnancy.) From what I can find, there are maybe four midwives here-- two practices-- so the odds are good, unless there are more around who just don't advertise their services.
We have finished an entire bottle of multivitamins for men, an entire bottle of fish oil, and almost all of the L-Carnitine, which means it's been sixty days since I put Don on all this stuff, which means that it's been more than two months since the last miscarriage.
I could possibly be pregnant again, it's too soon to know. I don't know how I feel about that, except that I feel I have no real choice, as I'm compelled to keep trying by a force stronger than rational decision-making. (Which may not be all that strong anyways, as neither of us are much known for our powers of the rational as it is.) So, wait and see. I have a different mentality now about the chances for each pregnancy. It's sort of hard to explain. Before, I was convinced that each pregnancy was IT, the one that would be our baby. Everything I read, everything the doctors said, reinforced the idea that the odds were in our favor. There's no reason, they said, why your next pregnancy wouldn't work out! Even now, after four miscarriages and no successful pregnancies, the literature claims our chances for a successful try next time are still better than 50-50, and that's not assuming any kind of treatment.
Now I feel like this: clearly, there's something that makes it difficult for me (or us) to hold onto a pregnancy. It may be just the progesterone issue, or maybe it's that plus something else, something the doctors couldn't find or didn't look for. I did the progesterone religiously last time, but to no avail: could be "bad luck" (the doctors' theory), could be some problem with the method (maybe I'm not absorbing it properly, or once it's in me, it doesn't act right, or something-- I'm no scientist), or maybe there's another issue, either in general or with just that pregnancy-- a bad egg or a lousy sperm or a bad implantation. I feel like there's a number out there, that describes our odds of success. The doctors don't know it, nobody does. Is it one-in-ten? One-in-twenty? Or one-in-a-million? I'm veering towards the lower end because there's so much that's not wrong, so much that tested clean. But there's no way to know: it could be impossible but how to find that out without trying again and again? Everything we do is to push those odds higher: the progesterone, the supplements, the specialists. Maybe this next time, it will work because of some little change; maybe all the vitamins I'm force-feeding into Don will make his swimmer straighten up and fly right... if that was ever a problem. Maybe my megadoses of folic acid will make some kind of difference. We don't know. Maybe it will work because statistically, it's just chance, just a million different things falling into place. If our odds are one-in-ten for a good pregnancy, maybe this time the dice will roll right. Or maybe it will fail again. But I think I can be OK with that, maybe. Because I'm no longer telling myself that this next time is IT.
Showing posts with label Wedded. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wedded. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Ketchup
It seems that I haven't written here in forever. Oops about that. Nothing's wrong or anything, just a confluence of factors conspiring against the blog. It started with a few really hectic weeks at work, with me working overtime all over the place, as well as being really busy while at work. I hate to admit it, but downtime at work is generally when I write in here. Then the camera batteries died, and I really wanted to put up a picture of something... Now I can't remember what. Mostly, though, it's because I've been really struggling with the miscarriage thing (again. or still.) and it makes for such repetitive writing. In a novel or a movie, trauma resolves itself to some kind of conclusion; in a journal it just rehashes itself endlessly.
I didn't want to write much about (or think about) the last miscarriage, because it was awful. So I kind of dealt with it in the most minimal way possible, which worked until a month later when my period came, because that was awful too, and it was like some kind of freaky flashback thing. (Note to self: vocabulary. find some.) I didn't feel like working through that on paper, so to speak. So I just didn't write at all. Then Don and I were confronted with the approach of the Fertile Window and had to decide whether or not we were Trying Again this cycle. After four miscarriages it's become a grim decision, not the joyous one it was the first time, or even the second. I actually said to him, "We need to talk soon about whether to try for our next miscarriage this month, or wait another cycle"... without realizing what I'd said wrong. Well, no point putting off the inevitable; we're going to keep trying so we may as well try as soon as possible.
Good things have been happening, too. I mentioned that we'd done a good bit of work on the fence; now the chicken coop is almost done too. Don took that project over, as predicted, but is following my design pretty well. We were supposed to be getting the actual birds this weekend, but that's up in the air now. The weather's been great, lots of rain from the hurricanes, starting to get into my favorite season now. Got a little raise at work. Plane tickets booked for New Mexico in December; finally get a chance to hang out with my family there for a bit. It hasn't been all five of us since Big Bend 2006. So that's something to look forward to.
I didn't want to write much about (or think about) the last miscarriage, because it was awful. So I kind of dealt with it in the most minimal way possible, which worked until a month later when my period came, because that was awful too, and it was like some kind of freaky flashback thing. (Note to self: vocabulary. find some.) I didn't feel like working through that on paper, so to speak. So I just didn't write at all. Then Don and I were confronted with the approach of the Fertile Window and had to decide whether or not we were Trying Again this cycle. After four miscarriages it's become a grim decision, not the joyous one it was the first time, or even the second. I actually said to him, "We need to talk soon about whether to try for our next miscarriage this month, or wait another cycle"... without realizing what I'd said wrong. Well, no point putting off the inevitable; we're going to keep trying so we may as well try as soon as possible.
Good things have been happening, too. I mentioned that we'd done a good bit of work on the fence; now the chicken coop is almost done too. Don took that project over, as predicted, but is following my design pretty well. We were supposed to be getting the actual birds this weekend, but that's up in the air now. The weather's been great, lots of rain from the hurricanes, starting to get into my favorite season now. Got a little raise at work. Plane tickets booked for New Mexico in December; finally get a chance to hang out with my family there for a bit. It hasn't been all five of us since Big Bend 2006. So that's something to look forward to.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Working Relationships
Until recently, Don and I have been kind of bogged down regarding getting things done outside. Every time we went downstairs to work, we would end up wasting time wandering around, looking at everything, planning, talking. Generally about the same things that we'd already discussed, though, so not in a particularly useful way. So we'd trudge down the hill to start setting up the fence, only to get distracted by the Terrible Ditch*, start talking about the Upstairs Fence**, and end up trying to grub out a weed-tree with a hatchet. Every evening that we tried to work ended up being unproductive. One part of it is just that we're both really easily distracted. I won't say that he or I have ADD since that would require a professional diagnosis that neither of us have sought, but staying focused isn't an easy thing for either of us. Another part of the problem is that Don can borrow very useful tools from work, so instead of just attacking a problem with what we have, it becomes "tomorrow I could bring home ___ which would make this so much faster/easier/more possible"... and then the tool does not materialize the next day, or the next, and the project is delayed. Another part of the problem is that we communicate differently, and visualize things in a different manner. Since these are pretty large-scale planning projects, like Where Will the Fence Go and Show Me Where the Garden Is, being able to visualize them together is imperative. I am pretty good at drawing a plan on paper, and being able to visualize what it will be like full-sized and in three dimensions. It comes from years of practice, from a hobby of drawing scale floor-plans of imaginary houses, and from drafting and building a few pieces of furniture. So I sketch out our property, and describe it to him: "So OK, so here's the house, and this here's the driveway, and running along the edge of our lot is that concrete retaining wall next door. So this line I've drawn in is the fence, running along until here, then turning to go up along the drive. Then this squiggle is the gate in the fence..." and he always nods, uh-huh. But then when we get outside, says, "So show me where you want this fence you were talking about...", which I found incredibly frustrating, because hadn't we already been over this a few times? Finally he just flat-out said that he doesn't find the blueprints very useful and can visualize more easily by just staring around the place. So we have very different styles as far as that goes; I can't plan anything without the graph-paper, I have to be able to visualize it from above, while Don needs to see it head-on. At least now we both get that.
A week of two of frustrating slowness lead to a minor hissy-fit on my end that basically ended with, "... so let's just DO IT. Laser-focus! No distractions! Ignore the ditch, the walnut trees, the drainage problem-- focus on putting up the fence and NOTHING ELSE!" We*** went out and pounded all of the back-yard fence posts in, as well as hacking out several shrub-sized weeds, getting more done in an hour and a half than we had in the past week. Don kept the momentum going, and stretched the wire fencing around the posts the next day, finishing up this morning. Now the whole back-yard fence is done except for the gates. I can finally lay out my garden beds, the place is reasonably secure for the chickens I'm getting next month (or will be, once we build the gates), and the dog can finally hang out with me while I'm working outside. (She's a runner, one of the many reasons for the fence.) And the whole thing took maybe eight hours over three days.
It's really interesting, because we've been together for eight years. Married for one, but living together for the last seven. It's not like we aren't familiar with each other. But working together so closely is fairly new. Yeah, we've painted rooms, built furniture, done patio gardens, but the scale and scope of these house-and-garden projects is bigger, and more important. It's a weird feeling, to feel like I'm getting to know my husband better after so many years. I was originally going to post this in the new blog, but realized that it's not about the fence, but about us.
**********************************************
* At the far corner of our lot, between the downstairs driveway, the next-door lot and the (site of the future) kitchen garden is an awful ditch. It is bordered by the street, has the stabilizing lines of a telephone pole anchored in it, and technically most of it belongs to the city. It slopes from street-level down to the level of the garden. It is filled with weeds, woody brush left over from pruning other parts of the property, and stuff people tried to get rid of-- cinder blocks, bird baths. We are going to build a retaining wall, then just fill it with dirt, pack it down, get rid of the weeds, and plant some kind of ground-cover over it. Right now, though, it's an eyesore.
** We've got two different fencing systems going on here. Downstairs is welded-wire fencing, like the kind used in rural areas for keeping livestock. It's actually pretty common here, too, and is really useful. For one thing, you don't have to dig post-holes; the steel fence-posts are just pounded into the ground and the wire fencing is tied to the posts. Very utilitarian but not unattractive, at least not to my eyes. It's much better looking than, say, chain-link, especially as it starts to blend into the background after a little while, as the shiny steel oxidizes a bit and loses its brightness. But we're switching to a wooden picket fence for the front yard, just for how it looks, mainly. Actually I guess three fences. Because the picket fence becomes a privacy fence as it runs along the main road.
*** Let's not get carried away: Don drives the fence posts and does most of the other manly grunt-work. I design, direct, encourage, help stretch the fencing taut, and retrieve the tools that he is forever dropping on the ground. I did drive one or two posts just to prove that I could, but hell. As Don keeps pointing out, isn't this why I married a handy, hard-working guy? Chopping out the bad weeds with a hatchet, though, is surprisingly satisfying, and not as hard as it looks.
A week of two of frustrating slowness lead to a minor hissy-fit on my end that basically ended with, "... so let's just DO IT. Laser-focus! No distractions! Ignore the ditch, the walnut trees, the drainage problem-- focus on putting up the fence and NOTHING ELSE!" We*** went out and pounded all of the back-yard fence posts in, as well as hacking out several shrub-sized weeds, getting more done in an hour and a half than we had in the past week. Don kept the momentum going, and stretched the wire fencing around the posts the next day, finishing up this morning. Now the whole back-yard fence is done except for the gates. I can finally lay out my garden beds, the place is reasonably secure for the chickens I'm getting next month (or will be, once we build the gates), and the dog can finally hang out with me while I'm working outside. (She's a runner, one of the many reasons for the fence.) And the whole thing took maybe eight hours over three days.
It's really interesting, because we've been together for eight years. Married for one, but living together for the last seven. It's not like we aren't familiar with each other. But working together so closely is fairly new. Yeah, we've painted rooms, built furniture, done patio gardens, but the scale and scope of these house-and-garden projects is bigger, and more important. It's a weird feeling, to feel like I'm getting to know my husband better after so many years. I was originally going to post this in the new blog, but realized that it's not about the fence, but about us.
**********************************************
* At the far corner of our lot, between the downstairs driveway, the next-door lot and the (site of the future) kitchen garden is an awful ditch. It is bordered by the street, has the stabilizing lines of a telephone pole anchored in it, and technically most of it belongs to the city. It slopes from street-level down to the level of the garden. It is filled with weeds, woody brush left over from pruning other parts of the property, and stuff people tried to get rid of-- cinder blocks, bird baths. We are going to build a retaining wall, then just fill it with dirt, pack it down, get rid of the weeds, and plant some kind of ground-cover over it. Right now, though, it's an eyesore.
** We've got two different fencing systems going on here. Downstairs is welded-wire fencing, like the kind used in rural areas for keeping livestock. It's actually pretty common here, too, and is really useful. For one thing, you don't have to dig post-holes; the steel fence-posts are just pounded into the ground and the wire fencing is tied to the posts. Very utilitarian but not unattractive, at least not to my eyes. It's much better looking than, say, chain-link, especially as it starts to blend into the background after a little while, as the shiny steel oxidizes a bit and loses its brightness. But we're switching to a wooden picket fence for the front yard, just for how it looks, mainly. Actually I guess three fences. Because the picket fence becomes a privacy fence as it runs along the main road.
*** Let's not get carried away: Don drives the fence posts and does most of the other manly grunt-work. I design, direct, encourage, help stretch the fencing taut, and retrieve the tools that he is forever dropping on the ground. I did drive one or two posts just to prove that I could, but hell. As Don keeps pointing out, isn't this why I married a handy, hard-working guy? Chopping out the bad weeds with a hatchet, though, is surprisingly satisfying, and not as hard as it looks.
Monday, August 04, 2008
blue shutters
When Don and I were house-hunting, weekends took on a new pattern; searching online, taking long drives to see houses and measure distances, having long discussions about what we wanted in a home, what we could do without, how far from town we could live. When we decided to stop looking, weekends resumed their random, peaceful pace.
Since buying the house, though, we have a new pattern: Lowes/ Home Depot. Work on house. Make house plans. Sears. Work. Plan. Repeat. Suddenly, there isn't enough time to do everything we want-- we're looking forward to weekends not just as a respite from our jobs, but as the time we need to get all these things done. I guess we have a new couple's hobby, called House, and it turns out to be fairly effective about keeping my mind off of other, less joyous stuff.
It's almost overwhelming because there are so many things that we've wanted to do 'once we had a house'. I've been gardening in containers for years and years now, putting very little if anything into the ground. Now, I can plant a real, in-ground vegetable garden out back and flower garden to the side... I just need to decide how much garden I can handle. My idle ideas about keeping chickens and bees are suddenly a real possibility. Inside, it was always, "if we owned this place, I'd put a vent-hood over the stove/ add wainscotting in the kitchen/ rip out those carpets"-- and now we do own this place. Where to begin? Which plans were fantasies (the skylight in the kitchen) and which are we actually going to do? So we're making concrete plans and jumping into about six projects at once, and life is suddenly a bit chaotic, but in a fun way. I've started a new blog to keep track of everything re: the house and garden, so that I can keep it mostly separate from this one. I just can't wait until this weekend, this autumn, and next spring!
Since buying the house, though, we have a new pattern: Lowes/ Home Depot. Work on house. Make house plans. Sears. Work. Plan. Repeat. Suddenly, there isn't enough time to do everything we want-- we're looking forward to weekends not just as a respite from our jobs, but as the time we need to get all these things done. I guess we have a new couple's hobby, called House, and it turns out to be fairly effective about keeping my mind off of other, less joyous stuff.
It's almost overwhelming because there are so many things that we've wanted to do 'once we had a house'. I've been gardening in containers for years and years now, putting very little if anything into the ground. Now, I can plant a real, in-ground vegetable garden out back and flower garden to the side... I just need to decide how much garden I can handle. My idle ideas about keeping chickens and bees are suddenly a real possibility. Inside, it was always, "if we owned this place, I'd put a vent-hood over the stove/ add wainscotting in the kitchen/ rip out those carpets"-- and now we do own this place. Where to begin? Which plans were fantasies (the skylight in the kitchen) and which are we actually going to do? So we're making concrete plans and jumping into about six projects at once, and life is suddenly a bit chaotic, but in a fun way. I've started a new blog to keep track of everything re: the house and garden, so that I can keep it mostly separate from this one. I just can't wait until this weekend, this autumn, and next spring!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Sigh.
OK, well, so I'm back. Yeah. Many things to write about now. I'll start with a confession, because those are always fun. When I announced that I was taking a break from posting, it was because I'd just found out that we were pregnant again. My plan to get knocked up on our first cycle of trying again was fairly successful, making it our second time for a first-try pregnancy. If that makes any sense. I lost the desire to discuss the pregnancy here, though, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, my parents and brother were coming to Virginia to visit us, and I wanted to wait and share the news in person, for once, rather than over the phone; somehow dishing about it here several weeks before telling them didn't seem right. The main issue, though, was just that we've been through this so many times now, that my thoughts and emotional patterns have become repetitive. I couldn't stomach posting daily about how I was scared. Excited. Scared again. Hopeful. Worried. It's the same every time.
My family came to town, we told them our news, and all was joyous. Our ultrasound was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, and I decided that if it looked good, I'd come back here with the sonogram pictures and announce the pregnancy. If it was bad news, I'd come back to sob about another failure. Well, there are no sonogram pictures here today*. I am in that lovely span of time where I get to wonder whether I'll miscarry naturally again, or have to have a D & C. Did I mention that Don was on a business trip when I found out? And that I had to call him and tell him that we weren't having a baby after all? He had wanted me to put the ultrasound off for a week so that we could be together for it, and I demurred... I needed to see in there and see what was happening so badly that waiting another week seemed impossible.
Even though this is our fourth loss in a row, the doctors are adamant that it has nothing to do with the other three. Seriously. This one is random, couldn't have been helped by anything, just plain bad luck. You know how most women that have a miscarriage just have one, and it turns out that there's nothing wrong with them, and they have healthy pregnancies afterwards? This is that kind of miscarriage. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea, that after three other losses, we get the "random bad luck" miscarriage that is an anembryonic pregnancy, more commonly called a blighted ovum. It seems like more than our fair share of bad luck, like the universe is fucking with us. But since when is life fair, right? Things could be worse. They can always be worse. We had a second ultrasound this morning, just to make absolutely sure there isn't anything in there-- no missed twin, nothing like that-- before making the decision to stop the hormone treatment, since doing that would end even a healthy pregnancy. I did ask the doctor about Don's side of the fertility equation**, given the substantial age difference between us and the decades of hard living, but he essentially pointed out that as Don's gotten me pregnant four times in sixteen months, his sperm is not really to be questioned. But he gave me a list of vitamin and mineral supplements for the man, so I just spent a week's pay at Whole Foods for things like selenium and Vitamins C and E. It's interesting what we do when we have no control over a situation, isn't it? Oh, and I'm still infatuated with this RE practice. After the feet-in-stirrups part of a visit, they have me get dressed and come into an office, so that we can talk across a (round) table as fully-dressed adults, rather than continuing to talk at me while I'm still on the table, naked from the waist down and wrapped in a sheet. The added dignity is nice. Plus, I was twenty minutes late for my appointment (remind me to tell you that story some time, it involved our new truck*** getting towed from the parking lot at work, leaving me stranded with no ride, no cash, no debit card) and they were very gracious about it. Then they made a special appointment for today, a Saturday, for the followup since it's so hard for me to get out of work. If we get pregnant again I wonder if I could stay with them the whole time (assuming that is longer than a few weeks) instead of transferring back to the obstetrician.
P.S. Oh yeah, and we bought the house. It is ours. Or more accurately, 20% of it is ours, and the other 80% we will slowly buy back from the bank over 20 or 30 years. So at least one definite, constructive thing has happened this year, which is nice. Before, I was joking with Don that in future years, we will look back and remember 2007 as the year we wed, 2008 as the year we became homeowners, and 2009 as the year of the first baby. It is not entirely too late for that, since this one would have been due in February, but I am having a hard time believing that we'll ever successfully sustain a pregnancy.
*Interestingly, they still *take* the pictures for a failed pregnancy, they just don't give you copies for your fridge. I think that's probably a good idea, because otherwise I might go around showing people, "...and here's where there should have been an embryo, and yet look! It's not there! That's called an anembryonic pregnancy! Isn't that an oxymoron? Because you'd think the definition of being pregnant would be that there's an embryo inside you!" Instead, the photos get stapled to something in your file. My file is starting to look impressively thick.
** The only test they've done on Don so far is a chromosomal analysis to make sure that he doesn't have any genetic abnormalities.
*** We bought a new truck a little while ago, I don't think I ever mentioned it here. Although it's half mine (I paid for half of it and my name's on the title too) I think of it as Don's truck because it's replacing his 1993 Ford Ranger. This one is *exactly* the same truck, except that it's a 2006 and a beautiful dark red color instead of silver.
My family came to town, we told them our news, and all was joyous. Our ultrasound was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, and I decided that if it looked good, I'd come back here with the sonogram pictures and announce the pregnancy. If it was bad news, I'd come back to sob about another failure. Well, there are no sonogram pictures here today*. I am in that lovely span of time where I get to wonder whether I'll miscarry naturally again, or have to have a D & C. Did I mention that Don was on a business trip when I found out? And that I had to call him and tell him that we weren't having a baby after all? He had wanted me to put the ultrasound off for a week so that we could be together for it, and I demurred... I needed to see in there and see what was happening so badly that waiting another week seemed impossible.
Even though this is our fourth loss in a row, the doctors are adamant that it has nothing to do with the other three. Seriously. This one is random, couldn't have been helped by anything, just plain bad luck. You know how most women that have a miscarriage just have one, and it turns out that there's nothing wrong with them, and they have healthy pregnancies afterwards? This is that kind of miscarriage. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea, that after three other losses, we get the "random bad luck" miscarriage that is an anembryonic pregnancy, more commonly called a blighted ovum. It seems like more than our fair share of bad luck, like the universe is fucking with us. But since when is life fair, right? Things could be worse. They can always be worse. We had a second ultrasound this morning, just to make absolutely sure there isn't anything in there-- no missed twin, nothing like that-- before making the decision to stop the hormone treatment, since doing that would end even a healthy pregnancy. I did ask the doctor about Don's side of the fertility equation**, given the substantial age difference between us and the decades of hard living, but he essentially pointed out that as Don's gotten me pregnant four times in sixteen months, his sperm is not really to be questioned. But he gave me a list of vitamin and mineral supplements for the man, so I just spent a week's pay at Whole Foods for things like selenium and Vitamins C and E. It's interesting what we do when we have no control over a situation, isn't it? Oh, and I'm still infatuated with this RE practice. After the feet-in-stirrups part of a visit, they have me get dressed and come into an office, so that we can talk across a (round) table as fully-dressed adults, rather than continuing to talk at me while I'm still on the table, naked from the waist down and wrapped in a sheet. The added dignity is nice. Plus, I was twenty minutes late for my appointment (remind me to tell you that story some time, it involved our new truck*** getting towed from the parking lot at work, leaving me stranded with no ride, no cash, no debit card) and they were very gracious about it. Then they made a special appointment for today, a Saturday, for the followup since it's so hard for me to get out of work. If we get pregnant again I wonder if I could stay with them the whole time (assuming that is longer than a few weeks) instead of transferring back to the obstetrician.
P.S. Oh yeah, and we bought the house. It is ours. Or more accurately, 20% of it is ours, and the other 80% we will slowly buy back from the bank over 20 or 30 years. So at least one definite, constructive thing has happened this year, which is nice. Before, I was joking with Don that in future years, we will look back and remember 2007 as the year we wed, 2008 as the year we became homeowners, and 2009 as the year of the first baby. It is not entirely too late for that, since this one would have been due in February, but I am having a hard time believing that we'll ever successfully sustain a pregnancy.
*Interestingly, they still *take* the pictures for a failed pregnancy, they just don't give you copies for your fridge. I think that's probably a good idea, because otherwise I might go around showing people, "...and here's where there should have been an embryo, and yet look! It's not there! That's called an anembryonic pregnancy! Isn't that an oxymoron? Because you'd think the definition of being pregnant would be that there's an embryo inside you!" Instead, the photos get stapled to something in your file. My file is starting to look impressively thick.
** The only test they've done on Don so far is a chromosomal analysis to make sure that he doesn't have any genetic abnormalities.
*** We bought a new truck a little while ago, I don't think I ever mentioned it here. Although it's half mine (I paid for half of it and my name's on the title too) I think of it as Don's truck because it's replacing his 1993 Ford Ranger. This one is *exactly* the same truck, except that it's a 2006 and a beautiful dark red color instead of silver.
Friday, June 06, 2008
...Part Two
I'm in that lovely period of anticipation known as the Two Week Wait, those days between when one might have gotten pregnant and the earliest one could find out if this is so. Doubtful that this is our month, due to an unscheduled reappearance of Don's Terrible Neck & Back Pain (those pesky discs). This leads to dialogue like this: "What do you mean, you're in incredible pain? Do I care? FERTILIZE ME NOW!"-- that is thankfully internal. My mouth actually said things like, "poor baby", and "I'll go get the Advil." Still, we have a chance. And every time that we've gotten pregnant, I was previously convinced that it wasn't going to be our month, so I don't put too much stock in that feeling now. I am popping the prenatals, the aspirin, and the progesterone-- or I would be were it an oral medication. I guess "gingerly placing the progesterone" would be more accurate. What's bad is that I've had constant headaches lately, possibly due to this insane heat/ humidity, or to the stress of applying for a home loan. No Advil allowed in the two week wait...
We are officially preapproved for the loan, and nothing on their list of requirements is out of our reach, so things are looking good on that end. The termite inspection went well. But there are a lot of things that could go wrong, so I'm not overly excited (with a 'c'!) so far. My brain hurts, so must go now.
We are officially preapproved for the loan, and nothing on their list of requirements is out of our reach, so things are looking good on that end. The termite inspection went well. But there are a lot of things that could go wrong, so I'm not overly excited (with a 'c'!) so far. My brain hurts, so must go now.
Monday, June 02, 2008
If you want coherence, go read a novel
Project House: still waiting for loan application to be approved. Because THAT'S not a nerve-wracking few days, is it? Signed a bunch of paperwork with our landlord (aka the Seller, aka the Agent. He wears many hats.) that would usually not be signed until after he sees our pre-approval letter. Huh.
Project Baby: AM OVULATING TODAY. Got the simpering digital smiley face on Clear Blue Easy's ovulation kit this morning, backed it up with the more prosaic two-matching-lines kit from Accu-someting. They agree with each other. I've been so wrapped up with peeing in a cup every morning (I've gotten REALLY GOOD at that-- no splashing, no overflow!), testing with two different tests (what if one of them DOESN'T WORK?), taking my vitamins & etc, that I almost forgot that in order to get pregnant, we'd still have to have sex at some point. Thank goodness Don had the presence of mind (or something) to remember that bit.
Project Sister Coming to Virginia to Take Back the Dog We've Been Caring For for 9 Months: complete, amid much heartbreak and sadness. Our place is too quiet now. Alice seems a bit lost. Don may or may not have cried. We miss you, Cocomo! Come back any time!
Thoughts: that smiley face is pretty damn condescending. I mean, we are presumably intelligent, well-educated women. We do not require a flippin' smiley face to say, "yay! you're ovulating!". Seriously? Stop infantilizing the fertility-challenged.
It really sucks to realize that your zipper is down at the grocery store, where you've gone straight from work. And subsequently realize that you haven't used the bathroom in hours. How many people noticed that zipper? HOW MANY?
It is surreal to hand the rent check to the landlord and have him say, "If this works out, I'll be giving half of this back! Not to mention your damage deposit, the downstairs tenant's damage deposit, and half of her June rent!"
The bank has a website where you can check the process of your application any time. I hope they don't track how many times an applicant checks the site, or read too much into that. Every 2o minutes is normal, right?
It seems that Don doesn't really enjoy being woken up by having pee-soaked tests thrust towards his face. I can't see why-- I mean, smiley face! Right there! Exiting news.
Project Baby: AM OVULATING TODAY. Got the simpering digital smiley face on Clear Blue Easy's ovulation kit this morning, backed it up with the more prosaic two-matching-lines kit from Accu-someting. They agree with each other. I've been so wrapped up with peeing in a cup every morning (I've gotten REALLY GOOD at that-- no splashing, no overflow!), testing with two different tests (what if one of them DOESN'T WORK?), taking my vitamins & etc, that I almost forgot that in order to get pregnant, we'd still have to have sex at some point. Thank goodness Don had the presence of mind (or something) to remember that bit.
Project Sister Coming to Virginia to Take Back the Dog We've Been Caring For for 9 Months: complete, amid much heartbreak and sadness. Our place is too quiet now. Alice seems a bit lost. Don may or may not have cried. We miss you, Cocomo! Come back any time!
Thoughts: that smiley face is pretty damn condescending. I mean, we are presumably intelligent, well-educated women. We do not require a flippin' smiley face to say, "yay! you're ovulating!". Seriously? Stop infantilizing the fertility-challenged.
It really sucks to realize that your zipper is down at the grocery store, where you've gone straight from work. And subsequently realize that you haven't used the bathroom in hours. How many people noticed that zipper? HOW MANY?
It is surreal to hand the rent check to the landlord and have him say, "If this works out, I'll be giving half of this back! Not to mention your damage deposit, the downstairs tenant's damage deposit, and half of her June rent!"
The bank has a website where you can check the process of your application any time. I hope they don't track how many times an applicant checks the site, or read too much into that. Every 2o minutes is normal, right?
It seems that Don doesn't really enjoy being woken up by having pee-soaked tests thrust towards his face. I can't see why-- I mean, smiley face! Right there! Exiting news.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Epic
If only I'd been able to live-blog the entire journey, to really give an idea of the crazy that is camping someplace twelve hours away, with the entire 'family', in a small car. My mind is so full and tired, that all I can offer is snippets...
Like getting pulled over on the interstate in New York, going through the whole license-and-registration rigamarole, and finally:
Like getting pulled over on the interstate in New York, going through the whole license-and-registration rigamarole, and finally:
Officer: Do you know why I pulled you over?
Don: Honestly? No. No idea. (We weren't speeding, see, because the were police everywhere due to its being Memorial Day Weekend.)
Officer: Don't laugh, but I saw your dogs moving around in the back seat, and thought that they were kids that weren't buckled in. Now I see that I was mistaken. Sorry about that.
And so we were let back on the road, our "kids" still loose in the back. Too bad that the next time we were pulled over-- about four hours later, in Vermont-- it was because we were speeding, and resulted in a ticket.
There were lovely meals with friends we haven't seen in years... Friends that should come with a label: Do not be afraid of the vegans, they still eat pizza* and drink beer, and they don't sneer at your omelet! Friends that are coming down to visit us next month, at last!
"Camping" within the city on a holiday weekend was a new experience for us; we usually aim for off-peak times and out-of-the-way places, hoping to get a little peace, quiet, and privacy. This time, we were sort of treating the campsite and tent as a very cheap hotel room; not a 'getting away from it all' time so much as just a place to crash after being in town all day. Good thing, too, as it was pretty crowded and loud. The cat was wonderful; twelve straight hours in the car, two days in a tent, and another day back in the car doesn't phase her at all. She is the best road-trip cat imaginable**. Sometimes she's so quiet in the car that I have to check to make sure she hasn't slipped out somehow, but she's always just sleeping under the passenger seat. Alice loves it, too. We've taken so many trips (and moved cross-country) so many times in the eight years we've had her, that she seems to think spending days in the car is perfectly normal.
Cocomo, the sister's dog, was less relaxed. She is not a fan of the road trip, but that's one of the reasons why we took her; my sister is coming up in a few days to collect her and drive her back to Texas. We were hoping this trip would normalize the experience of being in the car, and I think it helped. Mainly, though, we just wanted to enjoy our last week with her:
Vermont is still awesome. We sort of spent the entire weekend saying, "Why did we leave this place, again? Why aren't we still here?" and reminding each other of the six-month winters. It just doesn't work, though, because who can think of snow, in the face of this:
Or this:
That picture encapsulates so many things that I love: my husband of one year, two days; my baby with the floppy ears; the neice-dog; and Speeder & Earl's mochas, of which I have been suffering withdrawal pains for four years. It's been too long.
*hummus, no cheese, tons of veggies. Looked yummy.
** I don't know anyone else that takes their cat on road trips, so I'm just guessing. But she handles it like a pro!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Netflix, Buffy, Harry, Doctor
A lot of nothing has been happening in these parts lately, hence the lack of updates. Perhaps the most exiting new development is this discovery: Seasons of television shows, on DVD, through Netflix! Oh, my. For someone with a slightly addictive personality, this is so dangerous. For example, Don was out of town most of last week (business trip), and I may or may not* have watched 12 hours of Gilmore Girls** within four evenings. Because you can get whole seasons! In order, from the very beginning, with no commercials... it's lovely. The difficulty is in remembering that you can pause the show, instead of subconsciously waiting for the commercial break to visit the bathroom or whatever, and finding yourself desperately having to go much later, not having realized that there are no commercials. It's like watching a PBS documentary-- you don't want to walk away, and yet there are no breaks! I'm working on adapting to this "DVD" concept.
Don and I are working our way through the first and second seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer too, a show that featured prominently in the early days of our friendship and thus has a nostalgia factor that's almost as appealing as the show itself. I think that any Harry Potter fan trying to come to grips with no more Harry, would do well to rediscover Buffy. Almost a year after the final book release, and I'm still saddened by the End of Harry Potter. Oh, sure, we can always re-read the books. There are movies still to come, but... whatever. To me, the movies were always a pleasant diversion, nothing more. Certainly not cannon. And yes, that encyclopedia sounds great, but it could be years more in the making. I miss that feeling of anticipation for the next book, the hours spent theorizing, analyzing details of plot and character, the heated discussions in person, on the phone, online. It's hard to close that chapter-- the chapter in which Harry Potter was this ongoing, alive thing-- even a year later. I have yet to find something that engages me the way it did.
Almost all of the lab results are back from the RE's office now. The doctor (!) called me this morning to let me know that Don's chromosome analysis was normal, and we had a chat in person about what's next. Which turns out to be... nothing. They have exhausted their battery of tests, and everything is normal. The only thing left is the progesterone, which they drew for this morning. I've been supplementing the stuff for the last two pregnancies, though, so it's probably not our issue. Especially considering that previous tests have showed it in normal range. Still, the doc said he'd write me a new prescription for it anyways, since it can't hurt. Either way, we're free to start trying again whenever we'd like. Since we have the daring to hope for a baby by next Mother's day, that means pretty soon.
You know, the weirdest part of the whole paragraph above is that the doctor called me. That has never happened before. Nurses call me. Receptionists call me. Doctors do not call me. And they do not say, "Well, if you're coming down for a blood test now, I'll rearrange some things so that we can sit down and talk for a few minutes while you're here." I finally find a doctor like this, and now I am essentially leaving his practice because they've done what they can. Ironic, yes?
Before, we had three completely unexplained miscarriages ... they could have been the result of any number of common problems. Now, we have the same three; completely unexplained, that are the result of anything except any of the usual causes of miscarriages. It's not my blood-- not a clotting disorder, nor bad antibodies. Not my genetic material, nor Don's. Not my uterus, not my tubes. And most likely, not my hormones. It's hard to wrap my mind around this bit of failure by modern medicine. Most definitely, a problem exists: three consecutive losses, no babies, it falls outside the probability of chance. And yet, the problem is undiagnosable. According to the doc's statistics, we have a 60% chance of carrying the next pregnancy to term without any kind of medical intervention. Considering that the chart lumps together everyone under 35, and combines those with 3 and those with 4 losses, it's probably a bit higher than that. He said, I can take a baby aspirin every day; even though all of the bloodwork came back normal, "It can't hurt and you never know". I can start supplementing progesterone even earlier, starting days after ovulation instead of waiting until we know we're pregnant.
I can just hold my breath, and hope that that "60%" actually applies to us.
************************************************
* I definitely did.
** Don likes this show too. I'll bet that a lot of men do but don't admit it.
Don and I are working our way through the first and second seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer too, a show that featured prominently in the early days of our friendship and thus has a nostalgia factor that's almost as appealing as the show itself. I think that any Harry Potter fan trying to come to grips with no more Harry, would do well to rediscover Buffy. Almost a year after the final book release, and I'm still saddened by the End of Harry Potter. Oh, sure, we can always re-read the books. There are movies still to come, but... whatever. To me, the movies were always a pleasant diversion, nothing more. Certainly not cannon. And yes, that encyclopedia sounds great, but it could be years more in the making. I miss that feeling of anticipation for the next book, the hours spent theorizing, analyzing details of plot and character, the heated discussions in person, on the phone, online. It's hard to close that chapter-- the chapter in which Harry Potter was this ongoing, alive thing-- even a year later. I have yet to find something that engages me the way it did.
Almost all of the lab results are back from the RE's office now. The doctor (!) called me this morning to let me know that Don's chromosome analysis was normal, and we had a chat in person about what's next. Which turns out to be... nothing. They have exhausted their battery of tests, and everything is normal. The only thing left is the progesterone, which they drew for this morning. I've been supplementing the stuff for the last two pregnancies, though, so it's probably not our issue. Especially considering that previous tests have showed it in normal range. Still, the doc said he'd write me a new prescription for it anyways, since it can't hurt. Either way, we're free to start trying again whenever we'd like. Since we have the daring to hope for a baby by next Mother's day, that means pretty soon.
You know, the weirdest part of the whole paragraph above is that the doctor called me. That has never happened before. Nurses call me. Receptionists call me. Doctors do not call me. And they do not say, "Well, if you're coming down for a blood test now, I'll rearrange some things so that we can sit down and talk for a few minutes while you're here." I finally find a doctor like this, and now I am essentially leaving his practice because they've done what they can. Ironic, yes?
Before, we had three completely unexplained miscarriages ... they could have been the result of any number of common problems. Now, we have the same three; completely unexplained, that are the result of anything except any of the usual causes of miscarriages. It's not my blood-- not a clotting disorder, nor bad antibodies. Not my genetic material, nor Don's. Not my uterus, not my tubes. And most likely, not my hormones. It's hard to wrap my mind around this bit of failure by modern medicine. Most definitely, a problem exists: three consecutive losses, no babies, it falls outside the probability of chance. And yet, the problem is undiagnosable. According to the doc's statistics, we have a 60% chance of carrying the next pregnancy to term without any kind of medical intervention. Considering that the chart lumps together everyone under 35, and combines those with 3 and those with 4 losses, it's probably a bit higher than that. He said, I can take a baby aspirin every day; even though all of the bloodwork came back normal, "It can't hurt and you never know". I can start supplementing progesterone even earlier, starting days after ovulation instead of waiting until we know we're pregnant.
I can just hold my breath, and hope that that "60%" actually applies to us.
************************************************
* I definitely did.
** Don likes this show too. I'll bet that a lot of men do but don't admit it.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
My uterus is beautiful. No, really, it is. It looks just perfect; the right shape, nothing hiding out in there, no cysts, no growths, no abnormalities, tubes all clear and leaking X-ray dye into the rest of my abdominal cavity...( Something I'd rather not consider. Where does it go after that?).
Which leaves us with absolutely no ideas re: the chronic miscarriages. Every test I've taken has returned nice, shiny, positive results. No blood-clotting factors, no overzealous antibodies, no chromosomal abnormalities. And now, a lovely, healthy-looking uterus. The doctors are doing a karyotype on Don's chromosomes now. They are to check my progesterone level later on this cycle, and we've both been prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic, in case there's some kind of infection involved. (Something that's easier to just treat than to look for, apparently.) But, Don's genetic material is already proven, I've was taking prescription progesterone for the last two pregnancies, and... an infection? Seriously, the odds of that being our problem are pretty small. But we're slowly ruling out all of the major causes... I'm afraid we're about to enter Unexplained Infertility land, the diagnosis that comes only after you've spent all your time and money to figure out what's wrong. The doc stated that he has confidence that our next pregnancy will work out, but that doesn't make me feel particularly warm and fuzzy. After all, he would have said the same things about the other pregnancies-- everybody else did. And while we've done scads of testing, we haven't actually changed anything since the last miscarriage, with the exception of this antibiotic regimen. I guess what comes next will depend partly on that progesterone test. If it measures low (and I think it will), then I want them to change my prescription. Either make it stronger (twice as much in every suppository), or change how it's administered, so that I take it orally or via injection. Also, I want them to write enough of a prescription so that I can start taking it way before I can even get a positive pregnancy test-- from ovulation, not twelve days later. Every month.
It turns out that the test wasn't nearly as bad as the medications I took in preparation for it. From now on, I will inform all future doctors about my extreme drug sensitivity, because my low level of pain tolerance is nothing compared to my complete inability to metabolize drugs properly. The procedure wasn't bad at all-- uncomfortable, but over in twenty minutes. But I was still throwing up from the Percoset (or was it the Valium?) four hours later, and spent all afternoon in bed with a wicked headache. Next time, I will just steel myself for the pain, take a few Advil, and refuse prescription painkillers. They are not for me. (Which is really too bad, because for the first hour or so, I felt REALLY good.)
*******************************************************************
P.S. Don turned to me last night during a commercial, and said, "Next year for Mother's Day, I'm going to get you that." I can't remember what it was, but his confidence that by this time next year, we'll be celebrating Mother's Day touched me. (Oh, I remember now. A box of Rice Crispies cereal. You'd have to see the commercial for it to make any sense at all.) I want to be pregnant again by mid-summer, assuming that by then we'll have exhausted any available tests or treatments, and it's looking that way.
P.P.S For this test, they had to do it a certain number of days after my period. Easy... just wait for period, call and make appointment. For the progesterone, he said to call X number of days BEFORE my period starts. Am I the only one that sees the difficulty in this?
P. P.P.S. Becca, how can you, as a vegan, support breastfeeding? You know that it's.... DAIRY, right?
Which leaves us with absolutely no ideas re: the chronic miscarriages. Every test I've taken has returned nice, shiny, positive results. No blood-clotting factors, no overzealous antibodies, no chromosomal abnormalities. And now, a lovely, healthy-looking uterus. The doctors are doing a karyotype on Don's chromosomes now. They are to check my progesterone level later on this cycle, and we've both been prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic, in case there's some kind of infection involved. (Something that's easier to just treat than to look for, apparently.) But, Don's genetic material is already proven, I've was taking prescription progesterone for the last two pregnancies, and... an infection? Seriously, the odds of that being our problem are pretty small. But we're slowly ruling out all of the major causes... I'm afraid we're about to enter Unexplained Infertility land, the diagnosis that comes only after you've spent all your time and money to figure out what's wrong. The doc stated that he has confidence that our next pregnancy will work out, but that doesn't make me feel particularly warm and fuzzy. After all, he would have said the same things about the other pregnancies-- everybody else did. And while we've done scads of testing, we haven't actually changed anything since the last miscarriage, with the exception of this antibiotic regimen. I guess what comes next will depend partly on that progesterone test. If it measures low (and I think it will), then I want them to change my prescription. Either make it stronger (twice as much in every suppository), or change how it's administered, so that I take it orally or via injection. Also, I want them to write enough of a prescription so that I can start taking it way before I can even get a positive pregnancy test-- from ovulation, not twelve days later. Every month.
It turns out that the test wasn't nearly as bad as the medications I took in preparation for it. From now on, I will inform all future doctors about my extreme drug sensitivity, because my low level of pain tolerance is nothing compared to my complete inability to metabolize drugs properly. The procedure wasn't bad at all-- uncomfortable, but over in twenty minutes. But I was still throwing up from the Percoset (or was it the Valium?) four hours later, and spent all afternoon in bed with a wicked headache. Next time, I will just steel myself for the pain, take a few Advil, and refuse prescription painkillers. They are not for me. (Which is really too bad, because for the first hour or so, I felt REALLY good.)
*******************************************************************
P.S. Don turned to me last night during a commercial, and said, "Next year for Mother's Day, I'm going to get you that." I can't remember what it was, but his confidence that by this time next year, we'll be celebrating Mother's Day touched me. (Oh, I remember now. A box of Rice Crispies cereal. You'd have to see the commercial for it to make any sense at all.) I want to be pregnant again by mid-summer, assuming that by then we'll have exhausted any available tests or treatments, and it's looking that way.
P.P.S For this test, they had to do it a certain number of days after my period. Easy... just wait for period, call and make appointment. For the progesterone, he said to call X number of days BEFORE my period starts. Am I the only one that sees the difficulty in this?
P. P.P.S. Becca, how can you, as a vegan, support breastfeeding? You know that it's.... DAIRY, right?
Monday, April 28, 2008
Forget Percoset, prescribe me Prozac
Today's money goal: NO books and NO magazines for at least one month, starting today.
Next week's money goal: split tax refund deposit between savings accounts.
Speaking of which, was anyone else's refund abnormally large this year? It's kind of hard to compare because both our incomes increased year-over-year, and we got married, but it seems like a lot to me. We did owe extra state taxes, though. (You know what I miss about Texas? No state income tax.)
Next month's money goal: build a bumper in my checking account so that it doesn't drop to alarming single digits between paychecks. (Harder to do when you get paid once a week, instead of twice-monthly like normal professional people.)
Mental-health goal: stop freaking out about the HSG. I will be calm. Calm. Calm does not include biting finger-nails to below the quick, or being unable to sleep... Whatever they find in there, we can work it out. Answers are better than no answers. No matter what happens, we will someday, eventually, have our babies. We have time.
Don and I were discussing the possibility that we could end up having to do IVF, depending on what turns out to be the problem, and how often IVF leads to multiples. Twins are fine, but his take on triplets: "It just doesn't seem like a good idea to have more babies than the number of breasts you have, you know?" Surprisingly, my idea to grow a third boob to support a potential triplet was not well-received.
Next week's money goal: split tax refund deposit between savings accounts.
Speaking of which, was anyone else's refund abnormally large this year? It's kind of hard to compare because both our incomes increased year-over-year, and we got married, but it seems like a lot to me. We did owe extra state taxes, though. (You know what I miss about Texas? No state income tax.)
Next month's money goal: build a bumper in my checking account so that it doesn't drop to alarming single digits between paychecks. (Harder to do when you get paid once a week, instead of twice-monthly like normal professional people.)
Mental-health goal: stop freaking out about the HSG. I will be calm. Calm. Calm does not include biting finger-nails to below the quick, or being unable to sleep... Whatever they find in there, we can work it out. Answers are better than no answers. No matter what happens, we will someday, eventually, have our babies. We have time.
Don and I were discussing the possibility that we could end up having to do IVF, depending on what turns out to be the problem, and how often IVF leads to multiples. Twins are fine, but his take on triplets: "It just doesn't seem like a good idea to have more babies than the number of breasts you have, you know?" Surprisingly, my idea to grow a third boob to support a potential triplet was not well-received.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Falling for dogs that aren't your own
Good news, part A: I have normal chromosomes. (Insert major sigh of relief here!)
Good news, part B: Don's insurance seems to cover paternal karyotyping.
Irksome news: My RE office has misplaced Don's insurance information, so I have to bring it to them again. Just as I did two weeks ago! This is not helping with that recurring feeling I have of being on a repeating loop of time.
I'm not that worried about Don's genetic material, for various reasons that I won't put here. The next logical step in the Neverending Fertility Quest is (of course) the Uterus Exam, the timing of which is a fragile thing: depending on my cycle, my work schedule, and the doctor's schedule. I think we're looking at the end of May, maybe? I ovulated freakishly late this month, so I have no idea when to expect my period... The challenge right now is remaining un-pregnant until all these tests can be done. Now that we've gotten pregnant on the first or second try three times in a row, we take it a bit more seriously than before. . .
And on the Interesting News front, my sister is finally coming to claim her dog. You know, the dog we agreed to watch from August to October, and have had ever since? The dog that Don has completely fallen in love with and doesn't want to give back? This is going to be painful. (For him.) It should be noted, though, that Don is kind of easy when it comes to dogs. He falls in love with every dog that he spends time with, and that loves him back. I'm sure he'll get over it, right?
Right?
*******************************************************************
Two days ago was the anniversary of our first miscarriage. I can't believe it has been one year, already, since this. On a brighter note, it was also the 7-year anniversary of Alice's adoption from the animal shelter.
Good news, part B: Don's insurance seems to cover paternal karyotyping.
Irksome news: My RE office has misplaced Don's insurance information, so I have to bring it to them again. Just as I did two weeks ago! This is not helping with that recurring feeling I have of being on a repeating loop of time.
I'm not that worried about Don's genetic material, for various reasons that I won't put here. The next logical step in the Neverending Fertility Quest is (of course) the Uterus Exam, the timing of which is a fragile thing: depending on my cycle, my work schedule, and the doctor's schedule. I think we're looking at the end of May, maybe? I ovulated freakishly late this month, so I have no idea when to expect my period... The challenge right now is remaining un-pregnant until all these tests can be done. Now that we've gotten pregnant on the first or second try three times in a row, we take it a bit more seriously than before. . .
And on the Interesting News front, my sister is finally coming to claim her dog. You know, the dog we agreed to watch from August to October, and have had ever since? The dog that Don has completely fallen in love with and doesn't want to give back? This is going to be painful. (For him.) It should be noted, though, that Don is kind of easy when it comes to dogs. He falls in love with every dog that he spends time with, and that loves him back. I'm sure he'll get over it, right?
Right?
*******************************************************************
Two days ago was the anniversary of our first miscarriage. I can't believe it has been one year, already, since this. On a brighter note, it was also the 7-year anniversary of Alice's adoption from the animal shelter.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Tax Day
Public Service Announcement: the people working in banks are not tax experts. We are not CPAs. We have never taken a single class or lesson in tax preparation, because that's not even close to our job; we know enough to file our own taxes and that's about it. It is not even legal for us to offer tax advice without being certified to do so. Thank you.
Don and I filed our taxes last night, which was weird: April 14th is so early for us. There's nothing like the promise of a juicy rebate check to get us to fall in line. Tonight will be the first April 15th in quite some time that didn't feature (literally) 11th-hour preparations... I'm not sure what to do with the evening now. Not to mention that it was our first time that we could claim "married, filing jointly" instead of "single": how utterly romantical. To honor, to cherish, and to share a single 1040 form...
No interesting results from all those blood tests yet. The four that were being re-run came back normal, but the one that is new and exiting (genetic karyotype thingie) won't have results for awhile yet. I probably won't be able to do the HSG until May, as my coworker's heart surgery seems to outrank my exploratory procedure. (What, there's something more important in this world than my uterus? Surely not!) So, the whole fertility thing is going kind of slowly. Sometimes I feel fine about that, rational, but sometimes I just feel frantic as I feel the weeks slipping by, still undiagnosed and nonpregnant. I wonder how old I'll be when (if?) I finally have a baby in my arms... something I thought would have happened quite some time ago now. Anyways....
Don and I filed our taxes last night, which was weird: April 14th is so early for us. There's nothing like the promise of a juicy rebate check to get us to fall in line. Tonight will be the first April 15th in quite some time that didn't feature (literally) 11th-hour preparations... I'm not sure what to do with the evening now. Not to mention that it was our first time that we could claim "married, filing jointly" instead of "single": how utterly romantical. To honor, to cherish, and to share a single 1040 form...
No interesting results from all those blood tests yet. The four that were being re-run came back normal, but the one that is new and exiting (genetic karyotype thingie) won't have results for awhile yet. I probably won't be able to do the HSG until May, as my coworker's heart surgery seems to outrank my exploratory procedure. (What, there's something more important in this world than my uterus? Surely not!) So, the whole fertility thing is going kind of slowly. Sometimes I feel fine about that, rational, but sometimes I just feel frantic as I feel the weeks slipping by, still undiagnosed and nonpregnant. I wonder how old I'll be when (if?) I finally have a baby in my arms... something I thought would have happened quite some time ago now. Anyways....
I love that Googling "washing mildewed towels" nets 11,700 hits, and that wikiHow has an entry specifically for it. It makes me feel less alone in the world to know that so many other people have forgotten the towels in the wash.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
House of the Absent-minded
Alice loves coffee, especially mochas. Naturally, the caffeine and chocolate isn't good for her little doggie system--and, you know, Hey! I was drinking that, damn dog!-- so I quite often stash my coffee cup on the windowsill, or the mantel*, or on top of the piano... anywhere that's too high for our quasi-suicidal puppy to reach. Because Don and I each have the attention span of a ... wait, what was I saying? Anyways, the cups stay there more often than not, while we wander around thinking, "what the hell did I do with my latte?", while it grows cold and occasionally moldy on the windowsill. Naturally, doing the dishes requires going from room to room collecting whatever dish-wear has accumulated in that room (and DON'T suggest that all of your dishes are in the kitchen. Who do you think you are, Martha frickin' Stewart? Tell me there aren't any forks under your sofa and I will declare you either neurotically clean, or having no dogs in the house.), but it's not that natural to remember to check atop the piano or mantel shelf for mugs, so sometimes they stay there for some time, sadly. The funny thing is that we were both raised in tidy, normal households, in which coffee mugs made a neat rotation from kitchen to dining room and back, with no interesting day-trips to, say, the ironing board.
You know what's funny? There's that stereotypical, close friendship between women and gay men (or at least, a certain kind of gay man and certain kind of woman); Will and Grace, Bridget Jones and Tom, etc. It is commonplace in popular media, and perhaps, for all I know, real life. Why isn't there a similar stereotype for lesbians and men? Men in general don't seem particularly enamoured with (real) lesbians. I wonder why the difference?
I forgot to mention that I saw one of my ovaries during the ultrasound on Thursday, which was awesome. The other one seemed to be hiding or something. I hope it exists, at least, but I'm not too worried on that score, seeing that we conceive easily. And apparently my uterus is leaning to the left. Dr B's take on it: "Whether it's a perfectly normal uterus that happens to be left-lying, or whether it's that way because or a deformity is still up in the air until the HSG." Thanks, doc. It occurred to me that I've been worrying that they'll not find anything wrong with me (diagnosis: unexplained infertility), but what if they find something that's not fixable? That would be even worse. Like if it turns out that the ol' uterus is so jacked up that even surgery wouldn't help; it would mean that we'd never be able to maintain a pregnancy. I got one of the girls at work to promise she'd consider surrogacy, but somehow I don't think Don will go for the idea.
Speaking of work, the past week was unutterably bad. I kind of thought that since I'd come out in the open about my ambivalence towards the job, it would suddenly turn OK for awhile, like when you are thinking about breaking up with someone and they get much nicer all of a sudden; or the way your hair always looks amazing the day you're scheduled for a haircut. Instead, I had the worst week ever, and am even more ambivalent than before. (Although I still can't stomach the idea of losing my health benefits. Gaah.)
Somehow or another, Spring has arrived with me barely noticing. Too caught up in my own crap, I guess. It just doesn't seem right... this time last year, I was all exited about Spring-- the daffodils, the rain, the dogwoods-- and being pregnant (for the FIRST time!) and thinking how great it was going to be, to be pregnant all summer. Now it's the same season, but I'm all cynical and pragmatic. I want to be that naive, hopeful girl I was only a year ago, wide-eyed and appreciative of the beauty surrounding her.
*We don't have a fireplace, but we do have a fireplace mantel. Go figure.
You know what's funny? There's that stereotypical, close friendship between women and gay men (or at least, a certain kind of gay man and certain kind of woman); Will and Grace, Bridget Jones and Tom, etc. It is commonplace in popular media, and perhaps, for all I know, real life. Why isn't there a similar stereotype for lesbians and men? Men in general don't seem particularly enamoured with (real) lesbians. I wonder why the difference?
I forgot to mention that I saw one of my ovaries during the ultrasound on Thursday, which was awesome. The other one seemed to be hiding or something. I hope it exists, at least, but I'm not too worried on that score, seeing that we conceive easily. And apparently my uterus is leaning to the left. Dr B's take on it: "Whether it's a perfectly normal uterus that happens to be left-lying, or whether it's that way because or a deformity is still up in the air until the HSG." Thanks, doc. It occurred to me that I've been worrying that they'll not find anything wrong with me (diagnosis: unexplained infertility), but what if they find something that's not fixable? That would be even worse. Like if it turns out that the ol' uterus is so jacked up that even surgery wouldn't help; it would mean that we'd never be able to maintain a pregnancy. I got one of the girls at work to promise she'd consider surrogacy, but somehow I don't think Don will go for the idea.
Speaking of work, the past week was unutterably bad. I kind of thought that since I'd come out in the open about my ambivalence towards the job, it would suddenly turn OK for awhile, like when you are thinking about breaking up with someone and they get much nicer all of a sudden; or the way your hair always looks amazing the day you're scheduled for a haircut. Instead, I had the worst week ever, and am even more ambivalent than before. (Although I still can't stomach the idea of losing my health benefits. Gaah.)
Somehow or another, Spring has arrived with me barely noticing. Too caught up in my own crap, I guess. It just doesn't seem right... this time last year, I was all exited about Spring-- the daffodils, the rain, the dogwoods-- and being pregnant (for the FIRST time!) and thinking how great it was going to be, to be pregnant all summer. Now it's the same season, but I'm all cynical and pragmatic. I want to be that naive, hopeful girl I was only a year ago, wide-eyed and appreciative of the beauty surrounding her.
*We don't have a fireplace, but we do have a fireplace mantel. Go figure.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
titles are for creative people, not for me
Don and I are not trying to get pregnant right now. Common sense dictates that we wait until we have at least a hint about what's going on with our failed launches, rather than just getting pregnant again right away and (presumably) losing it again. (Isn't one of the definitions of insanity to repeat the same action over and over, but expect a different result?) So why then did getting my period make me sad? Instinct? Habit? My optimistic subconscious whispering, maybe it will be OK this time? Here's a hint, subconscious: you keep thinking that, but you're zero for three. Nothing is more annoying than baseless optimism, you know. Please join me in the real world, where getting a period is a good thing! Or, at least a neutral event, unless it's so painful that I have to leave work early, as happened yesterday. Thank you. In the meantime, I'm trying to adjust to the fact that I won't be having a baby until I'm 28, most likely. That was SO not the plan. I had a plan. Hello Universe, didn't you read the script? Do you just wander onto the set tossing out random lines?
I've decided that doctors' visits are our new couples-hobby. Some couples take salsa dancing, some go hiking, some do bible study; we visit with doctors and compare notes after. I think we'll start hiking next-- all of the fun and bonding, but much less expensive and it burns more calories.
Still no decisions made re: Don's vehicle or lack thereof, which is OK with me. I especially liked our most recent conversation, which included this exchange: "Well in THAT case, it would make more sense for you to get the new car, and me to just take over yours, right?" Yes. Yes! But no. That would be totally unfair. We've also mulled over motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles with varying degrees of seriousness. Thank goodness his feet work just fine.
I've decided that doctors' visits are our new couples-hobby. Some couples take salsa dancing, some go hiking, some do bible study; we visit with doctors and compare notes after. I think we'll start hiking next-- all of the fun and bonding, but much less expensive and it burns more calories.
Still no decisions made re: Don's vehicle or lack thereof, which is OK with me. I especially liked our most recent conversation, which included this exchange: "Well in THAT case, it would make more sense for you to get the new car, and me to just take over yours, right?" Yes. Yes! But no. That would be totally unfair. We've also mulled over motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles with varying degrees of seriousness. Thank goodness his feet work just fine.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Are You Tired of This, Yet?
Don's truck broke down a few weeks ago; the transmission is finally, completely, shot. It hasn't been that much of a problem, really, because we live so close to where he works; it's at most twenty minutes on foot. The coffee shop that is an inalienable part of Alice's and my morning walk is about three-quarters of the way to his work, so sometimes he walks with us that far, gets a mocha, and continues on his way while we return to the house. Sometimes he skips the walk and I drop him off on the way to my work. Either way, it's rather nice to have a few extra minutes together before work.
I like being a one-car household, even temporarily; it plays so well into my fantasy about living in a walkable place and not being as dependent on The Car, and all the walking is good for Don. Who wouldn't benefit from walking more every day, right? Don is less happy with the situation, as it makes him a little too dependent, but he's torn between fixing the truck and just buying a new vehicle. It's a complicated situation, financially and emotionally, and it's too easy to just put off making a real decision given the circumstances.
And speaking of infertility (for lack of better segue)...
This period of my life feels as though it would run better as a montage. I can picture it: flashes of waiting rooms and doctors' offices interspersed with late-night kitchen table conversations-- what if it's from my time in Iraq, they injected us with so much crap, there were news stories for years afterwards/ no honey, it's much more likely to be my hormones, you'll see-- all set to some meaningful background music as we telescope towards a solution. If only I were the director, rather than just one of the main players in my own little drama. Instead we have to go through it all in agonizingly slow real time, and nobody is selecting a sound track for me. Next week I have an appointment with the R.E. Exact time undetermined as of yet, as my managers nixed the slot assigned to me. The funny bit is that I'm not even sure what the appointment is for-- whether we'll just be talking and devising an "action plan", or whether this is for my (brace yourself) hysterosalpingogram-- a lovely test in which they will inject dye into my uterus and then x-ray it! I'm ever so excited about that one.
Actually, I am excited about it. Anything that could lead to a diagnosis and (more importantly) a cure is exciting to me. Now that I'm reading more about the test, it looks like they couldn't possibly do it next week because it's for a specific time within the cycle and they don't know where I am, cycle-wise. It's contraindicated during pregnancy and apparently requires that a home pregnancy test be taken before the exam, which strikes me as a little funny because it's an infertility test. Sorry, we can't run this infertility test on you-- you're pregnant! So you don't need it anyways, see? Then again, I guess there are plenty of women like me needing the test, too, as well as those that just aren't getting preggers.
I've been having phantom pregnancy feelings lately. Left over from last time? Who knows. It's really not possible given the timing, unless there's a way to get pregnant by talking on the phone; I guess it's just the final dissolution of my mind/body relationship, and I sign that I should give up trying to interpret anything my body does. Sometimes I really do think life is easier for the male half of the species.
I like being a one-car household, even temporarily; it plays so well into my fantasy about living in a walkable place and not being as dependent on The Car, and all the walking is good for Don. Who wouldn't benefit from walking more every day, right? Don is less happy with the situation, as it makes him a little too dependent, but he's torn between fixing the truck and just buying a new vehicle. It's a complicated situation, financially and emotionally, and it's too easy to just put off making a real decision given the circumstances.
And speaking of infertility (for lack of better segue)...
This period of my life feels as though it would run better as a montage. I can picture it: flashes of waiting rooms and doctors' offices interspersed with late-night kitchen table conversations-- what if it's from my time in Iraq, they injected us with so much crap, there were news stories for years afterwards/ no honey, it's much more likely to be my hormones, you'll see-- all set to some meaningful background music as we telescope towards a solution. If only I were the director, rather than just one of the main players in my own little drama. Instead we have to go through it all in agonizingly slow real time, and nobody is selecting a sound track for me. Next week I have an appointment with the R.E. Exact time undetermined as of yet, as my managers nixed the slot assigned to me. The funny bit is that I'm not even sure what the appointment is for-- whether we'll just be talking and devising an "action plan", or whether this is for my (brace yourself) hysterosalpingogram-- a lovely test in which they will inject dye into my uterus and then x-ray it! I'm ever so excited about that one.
Actually, I am excited about it. Anything that could lead to a diagnosis and (more importantly) a cure is exciting to me. Now that I'm reading more about the test, it looks like they couldn't possibly do it next week because it's for a specific time within the cycle and they don't know where I am, cycle-wise. It's contraindicated during pregnancy and apparently requires that a home pregnancy test be taken before the exam, which strikes me as a little funny because it's an infertility test. Sorry, we can't run this infertility test on you-- you're pregnant! So you don't need it anyways, see? Then again, I guess there are plenty of women like me needing the test, too, as well as those that just aren't getting preggers.
I've been having phantom pregnancy feelings lately. Left over from last time? Who knows. It's really not possible given the timing, unless there's a way to get pregnant by talking on the phone; I guess it's just the final dissolution of my mind/body relationship, and I sign that I should give up trying to interpret anything my body does. Sometimes I really do think life is easier for the male half of the species.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Who wants to gamble?
Don and I had our very first infertility appointment Wednesday... I think it went really well. I've spent the last couple of weeks reading all of the books I could find about infertility and recurrent miscarriage; partly because I'm just interested in whatever could be messing us up, partly because I like to be well-informed and understand everything the doctors are saying-- I'd hate to hear a new word (like sonohysterography, for example, or chromosomal translocation, or thrombophilia) for the first time in a doctor's office, you know?-- and partly, (mostly), to check up on my doctors. Terribly distrusting, I know, but how else to be certain that they are covering all the bases? What if, for example, they say that there are three main causes of recurrent miscarriage? If a patient hasn't done their own research, she wouldn't know that there are five and that two potential causes might be overlooked by that practice. My doctor covered everything, though, with a thoroughness that has me feeling relieved and hopeful.
1. Hormonal problems. An out-of-whack thyroid, too much of this hormone or too little of that one, or just the wrong amounts at the wrong times, can start a chain reaction that disrupts everything.
2. Uterine abnormalities, like it being shaped funny, or split into two parts, or filled with fibroids.
3. Chromosomal defects in either me or Don, or both, that would be creating embryos with fatal problems.
4. Bacterial infection.
5. Fetus-unfriendly antibodies in my bloodstream.
6. Blood-clotting disorders (thrombophilias) that block blood flow to the developing placenta.
(Two of those should be combined into one but I can't remember which.) I'll offer decent odds on any of the above except the last-- I've already had the panel of tests for the thrombophilias and proved normal,-- does anyone want to start a pool? My money will be on options one or two, as I already know that my hormones are a little out of whack, just based on the timing of my cycle, and that my uterus is in a funny position. I'm trying to decide what option sounds best-- isn't that funny, to try to figure out what bodily defect is the most attractive?-- and right now I'm shooting for the hormones, because they're the most detectable and the most fixable. Blood tests to determine, shots or pills to fix. (The doc said something about me getting blood drawn every day for one period cycle to check my progesterone levels, but I am pretending right now that I misheard him. I don't have enough veins to do that.)
Popular wisdom continually stresses the enormous life-changes that are pregnancy and parenting; I am starting to think that infertility is at that level as well. It feels like life will never be the way it was before Don and I found how difficult it is for us to have a family. The difference is that pregnancy (and eventually parenting) start off with a bang; one minute you're happily sipping white wine, the next you're staring at a positive pregnancy test, while infertility creeps up slowly. A few too many months trying to conceive, one miscarriage and then maybe another, and eventually, it's finally clear that something is wrong.
I like my obstetrician, and Don does as well, which is more surprising. My general reaction to people is to like them as a default until something changes my mind, while his is rather the opposite; most people are unworthy until proven otherwise, going double for doctors. Unfortunately we won't be working with him now, as he's already referred us to a reproductive endocrinologist (say that three times fast!) to "get us pregnant" (I didn't point out the amazing ease with which Don and I already get pregnant; I figure it's part of his usual spiel and that he meant "keep us pregnant"), at which point we'll be bounced back to his care. At which point I'll probably try to switch back to the midwife I wanted to work with before, if that won't be too rude.
For anyone interested, the potential causes or recurrent miscarriage include:
1. Hormonal problems. An out-of-whack thyroid, too much of this hormone or too little of that one, or just the wrong amounts at the wrong times, can start a chain reaction that disrupts everything.
2. Uterine abnormalities, like it being shaped funny, or split into two parts, or filled with fibroids.
3. Chromosomal defects in either me or Don, or both, that would be creating embryos with fatal problems.
4. Bacterial infection.
5. Fetus-unfriendly antibodies in my bloodstream.
6. Blood-clotting disorders (thrombophilias) that block blood flow to the developing placenta.
(Two of those should be combined into one but I can't remember which.) I'll offer decent odds on any of the above except the last-- I've already had the panel of tests for the thrombophilias and proved normal,-- does anyone want to start a pool? My money will be on options one or two, as I already know that my hormones are a little out of whack, just based on the timing of my cycle, and that my uterus is in a funny position. I'm trying to decide what option sounds best-- isn't that funny, to try to figure out what bodily defect is the most attractive?-- and right now I'm shooting for the hormones, because they're the most detectable and the most fixable. Blood tests to determine, shots or pills to fix. (The doc said something about me getting blood drawn every day for one period cycle to check my progesterone levels, but I am pretending right now that I misheard him. I don't have enough veins to do that.)
Popular wisdom continually stresses the enormous life-changes that are pregnancy and parenting; I am starting to think that infertility is at that level as well. It feels like life will never be the way it was before Don and I found how difficult it is for us to have a family. The difference is that pregnancy (and eventually parenting) start off with a bang; one minute you're happily sipping white wine, the next you're staring at a positive pregnancy test, while infertility creeps up slowly. A few too many months trying to conceive, one miscarriage and then maybe another, and eventually, it's finally clear that something is wrong.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Aftermath
I keep dreaming that I'm still pregnant and everything is fine. Every time I wake up, I have to realize all over that it has happened again. It makes the early mornings suck. The coffee shop raised its prices on espresso drinks, which is just kind of gilding the lily on my week so far. Don isn't sleeping well, either. I don't know what's happening in his dreamscape, but it seems bad. These miscarriages are hard on him, too; maybe even harder, in a way, than they are on me. For one thing, he doesn't have the kind of support network that I do; even if there are people that would want to help him, he can't open up the way that I can to accept that help. None of his coworkers, his friends, not even his parents know about what he's going through; he's just too private and stoic. I think for some men, it's almost worse to have to see their wives going through something painful, than to experience pain themselves; Don is one of those. And I think he's worried about what this is going to do to us, to our marriage. Worried that maybe it's him, not me, even though all the evidence would suggest otherwise. He understands perfectly how much I want--need--to have a baby, but he doesn't realize how much I need his own self. Afraid maybe I'll trade him in for a more fertile model, I guess. Words are pretty useless against those kinds of fears, but I keep trying.
Today was the day that I had hoped to deliver that other pregnancy, the good long one from last summer with the heartbeat. (My God, I've gotten to the point where I need to identify which miscarriage I mean.) Technically, the due date would have been last Sunday--because nothing is as fabulous a coincidence as miscarrying exactly on the due date of your last miscarriage!--but I thought that Leap Day would be an awesome birthday to have. I knew a woman who's birthday was February 29th, and she got a real kick out of it. I keep attaching way too much significance to the random dates associated with pregnancy. Our very first pregnancy was conceived on Valentine's Day. (Sorry if that's too much information, and yes, I know that I'm an avowed V-Day Hater, but I was ovulating. Whatever.) I thought it was sweet and romantic and a good omen. The second pregnancy was conceived on our honeymoon; sweet, romantic, good omen, would make for a good how-you-were-made story as long as we left out certain details; and it would have been due right around Leap Day. This last one would have been due just a few days before Halloween, so you know what I was aiming for; it's only our favorite holiday of the year. I need to just stop thinking like that. There are no lucky days to conceive or to deliver. ANY day to give birth would become extra, extra-lucky all by itself. Why is it that I can hardly remember my friends' birthdays but can remember the exact dates of conception, Positive Pregnancy Test, and miscarriage for every pregnancy so far? It's obsessive and possibly unhealthy, but they're burned into my brain now.
Today was the day that I had hoped to deliver that other pregnancy, the good long one from last summer with the heartbeat. (My God, I've gotten to the point where I need to identify which miscarriage I mean.) Technically, the due date would have been last Sunday--because nothing is as fabulous a coincidence as miscarrying exactly on the due date of your last miscarriage!--but I thought that Leap Day would be an awesome birthday to have. I knew a woman who's birthday was February 29th, and she got a real kick out of it. I keep attaching way too much significance to the random dates associated with pregnancy. Our very first pregnancy was conceived on Valentine's Day. (Sorry if that's too much information, and yes, I know that I'm an avowed V-Day Hater, but I was ovulating. Whatever.) I thought it was sweet and romantic and a good omen. The second pregnancy was conceived on our honeymoon; sweet, romantic, good omen, would make for a good how-you-were-made story as long as we left out certain details; and it would have been due right around Leap Day. This last one would have been due just a few days before Halloween, so you know what I was aiming for; it's only our favorite holiday of the year. I need to just stop thinking like that. There are no lucky days to conceive or to deliver. ANY day to give birth would become extra, extra-lucky all by itself. Why is it that I can hardly remember my friends' birthdays but can remember the exact dates of conception, Positive Pregnancy Test, and miscarriage for every pregnancy so far? It's obsessive and possibly unhealthy, but they're burned into my brain now.
Monday, February 25, 2008
At least...
...it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy; the fear of that drove me to the emergency room in the first place. A simple, uncomplicated early miscarriage is a blessing compared to the mess that could have been.
At least going to the hospital created a medical record of the pregnancy and miscarriage; they won't have to take my word for it that I got pregnant and miscarried for a third time, and we can start the more specialized tests that are saved for us fertility-challenged peoples.
At least it was really early. Speaking from experience now, it is much, much easier (physically) to miscarry at 5-6 weeks along than at 10-12. This is just like a bad period, really-- nothing like the terrifying hemorrhage that was the first miscarriage. Mentally, it's a bit easier because we didn't have two or three months of building-up time, week after week of thinking that everything will be fine-- then realizing that all that time was essentially wasted; that we'd have to start over again.
At least Don could come with me this time. It makes such a difference, having that support. Doctors and nurses don't really understand my dark sense of humor; it's a weird defensive mechanism that helps me deal with the undealwithable. They probably just thought I was nuts, but he understands that, in public at least, I'd rather joke than cry.
At least I have the unwavering support of my friends, my parents, my sister (and brother), even-- to some extent--my manager and coworkers. There are so many women out there struggling with this, or worse, all on their own. I can't imagine how rough that would be.
At least I'm still only 27. Whatever isn't right, there's plenty of time to fix. We decided to start a family when I was 25; imagine if we'd waited another five or even ten years to start trying! Everything would look a lot darker.
At least I have good medical insurance, so that deciding to go to the ER is no big deal, financially. Neither is the prospect of lots more doctor's appointments, or expensive tests. Imagine how much more difficult this journey would be if we had to finance it somehow.
At least we can get pregnant easily. That's huge. Whatever is making me lose my babies, I'm sure it can be fixed; the biggest hurdle is already passed. It took two cycles this time; one the last time, and four the first time-- but half of those we weren't really trying, more just "let's not use birth control and see what happens!" So every time we've tried to get pregnant, it essentially happened within two months. When we figure out what's happening, we should ideally be able to apply it in no time, and be on our way to a houseful of kiddies.
At least going to the hospital created a medical record of the pregnancy and miscarriage; they won't have to take my word for it that I got pregnant and miscarried for a third time, and we can start the more specialized tests that are saved for us fertility-challenged peoples.
At least it was really early. Speaking from experience now, it is much, much easier (physically) to miscarry at 5-6 weeks along than at 10-12. This is just like a bad period, really-- nothing like the terrifying hemorrhage that was the first miscarriage. Mentally, it's a bit easier because we didn't have two or three months of building-up time, week after week of thinking that everything will be fine-- then realizing that all that time was essentially wasted; that we'd have to start over again.
At least Don could come with me this time. It makes such a difference, having that support. Doctors and nurses don't really understand my dark sense of humor; it's a weird defensive mechanism that helps me deal with the undealwithable. They probably just thought I was nuts, but he understands that, in public at least, I'd rather joke than cry.
At least I have the unwavering support of my friends, my parents, my sister (and brother), even-- to some extent--my manager and coworkers. There are so many women out there struggling with this, or worse, all on their own. I can't imagine how rough that would be.
At least I'm still only 27. Whatever isn't right, there's plenty of time to fix. We decided to start a family when I was 25; imagine if we'd waited another five or even ten years to start trying! Everything would look a lot darker.
At least I have good medical insurance, so that deciding to go to the ER is no big deal, financially. Neither is the prospect of lots more doctor's appointments, or expensive tests. Imagine how much more difficult this journey would be if we had to finance it somehow.
At least we can get pregnant easily. That's huge. Whatever is making me lose my babies, I'm sure it can be fixed; the biggest hurdle is already passed. It took two cycles this time; one the last time, and four the first time-- but half of those we weren't really trying, more just "let's not use birth control and see what happens!" So every time we've tried to get pregnant, it essentially happened within two months. When we figure out what's happening, we should ideally be able to apply it in no time, and be on our way to a houseful of kiddies.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Um, House, no.
I haven't mentioned our house-hunting in awhile. This is primarily because it isn't going very well, for various reasons. We've looked at enough houses now to really understand the local market, and what we understand is that we're essentially priced out of it.
Moving from an inexpensive city to an expensive town is eye-opening. The median cost of a home where I'm from is $197,900*. In this town, it's $382,800-- almost twice as much. The population here is a lot smaller, too, so there are fewer houses on the market overall. Our budget is much more aligned with where we're from than where we are. Here, if a house is listed under $200,000, it has serious problems. We've seen a log cabin that is completely gutted inside from a fire, a 130-year-old farmhouse with all the issues you might expect (rotting sill, questionable roof, strange plumbing) as well as being pretty far from town, a house with "mold issues"-- someone else closed on that one before we could even consider it-- and a tiny cottage on a nice piece of land, but with bad structural problems. (Me: is a roof supposed to be all asymetrical like that? It's kind of arty, I like it! Don: No. and no.) I have no problem with a small place, but the idea is that it should also be inexpensive; I just can't swallow the idea of spending two hundred thou on less than a thousand square feet.
It's not that we don't have any money, or that we don't make money; it's more a matter of what we feel comfortable spending on housing. By my rough calculation, we spend about 25% of our take-home pay on rent-- that's after taxes, 401(k) contributions, health insurance, and other miscellaneous paycheck deductions. Not over-extending on housing makes life comfortable: it makes it easy to sock money away in savings, to keep credit card debt low or non-existent, to do things like eat out and travel without much forethought. Over the past few months of house-hunting, our acceptable price kept rising (ten thousand at a time, it seems) as we became frustrated with what was out there. It's not hard to calculate the monthly payment that a mortgage at x dollars and y interest rate will yield, plus property taxes and home insurance. As our 'highest acceptable price' inched up, the resultant mortgage payment crept from a little more than our current rent to much, much more.
Is owning a home worth that kind of reduction in standard of living, when we're looking at these kinds of homes? What would it take in order to spend another, say, $200 or 250 a month on a mortgage than we're currently spending on rent? Would it be the money that is currently directed into savings or our retirement plans? The money I spend on things like our CSA subscription, farmers' market produce, and organic eggs, dairy, and meat? Our charitable contributions? Or the discretionary cash we spend eating out, seeing movies, drinking lattes, and travelling whenever we get the chance? (Not often enough, sadly.) We could stretch to afford it, but at what cost?
Back in business school, I learned a good bit about fixed costs and variable costs, and how companies or even industries that let their fixed costs get out of control would inevitably get into trouble. (That's why service businesses tend to do so well-- low overhead.) This is how I try to manage the household finances, too, replacing 'discretionary spending' for 'variable costs'. Keeping our 'fixed costs' down lets us sleep easy, without worrying so much (about getting layed off, hurt, sick, etc) because we could cover what we have to on less. Sure, I blow a lot of money on my morning mochas and too many trips to Barnes&Noble, but I could just as easily stop doing that, should I need to. Whereas a mortgage payment is the fixiest of fixed costs.
To top that off, Don and I are still trying our darndest to start a family (some nights we try harder than others, but still). If--when-- we have a baby, I want the option of staying home and not returning to work. I'm not sure yet if that's what I want to do (maybe 95%) but I want the option. To simultaneously increase our fixed costs and decrease our income would be crazy/impossible. I used to believe that buying a home would be a good thing to do before baby comes along, a good first step, but now I'm starting to think they're incompatible. I'd much rather rent with the option of not working, than be forced to stay at my job by an inforgiving house payment.
Then, there's the whole other issue of time. How long are we going to stay in this area? Don's original idea (before the housing market got all depressed) was to buy a house and if we decide to move in another two years, no problem-- we just sell, and pocket the profit. It's not likely that this location, as much as I like it, was ever going to be permanent. (Don has no room for growth in his career and no intention of remaining where his is; he promised this hotel at least three years because they could see from his resume that he tends to move up into a new position every few years and they understandably didn't want him leap-frogging too soon.) The way the market looks right now, though, indicates that nobody should buy that isn't prepared to sit tight on their property for awhile. It's easy to see how a house could lose value in the next 2-3 years and even being able to sell at the exact price we payed would still leave us short the transaction costs of buying a home (thousands of dollars)-- twice, not to mention the hassle and headache of all those moves. The whole idea was to be financially smart and make ourselves some money, not lose.
So as much as I'm dreaming of a little cottage with climbing roses** and a luscious vegetable garden, perhaps it needs to wait. And as much as I'm enjoying Virginia, it's time to accept that we'll be moving again in awhile, ideally to somewhere more affordable***.
* according to Sperling's Best Places, updated 10/2007
** I'm thinking of planting an antique climbing rose at our rental house. I don't think our landlord will mind. Or notice. I mean, what if we're in this same house two years from now, and I still have no garden because I didn't plant anything, thinking that we'd just be moving before it could bloom?
*** And yet, I'm not sure we want to move back to Texas, either. Affordable housing just barely balances with the dry heat, endless pavement, and big business there. Don would like to move someplace closer to his parents (as his parents are a lot older than mine, it's an important consideration) than Texas or here.
Moving from an inexpensive city to an expensive town is eye-opening. The median cost of a home where I'm from is $197,900*. In this town, it's $382,800-- almost twice as much. The population here is a lot smaller, too, so there are fewer houses on the market overall. Our budget is much more aligned with where we're from than where we are. Here, if a house is listed under $200,000, it has serious problems. We've seen a log cabin that is completely gutted inside from a fire, a 130-year-old farmhouse with all the issues you might expect (rotting sill, questionable roof, strange plumbing) as well as being pretty far from town, a house with "mold issues"-- someone else closed on that one before we could even consider it-- and a tiny cottage on a nice piece of land, but with bad structural problems. (Me: is a roof supposed to be all asymetrical like that? It's kind of arty, I like it! Don: No. and no.) I have no problem with a small place, but the idea is that it should also be inexpensive; I just can't swallow the idea of spending two hundred thou on less than a thousand square feet.
It's not that we don't have any money, or that we don't make money; it's more a matter of what we feel comfortable spending on housing. By my rough calculation, we spend about 25% of our take-home pay on rent-- that's after taxes, 401(k) contributions, health insurance, and other miscellaneous paycheck deductions. Not over-extending on housing makes life comfortable: it makes it easy to sock money away in savings, to keep credit card debt low or non-existent, to do things like eat out and travel without much forethought. Over the past few months of house-hunting, our acceptable price kept rising (ten thousand at a time, it seems) as we became frustrated with what was out there. It's not hard to calculate the monthly payment that a mortgage at x dollars and y interest rate will yield, plus property taxes and home insurance. As our 'highest acceptable price' inched up, the resultant mortgage payment crept from a little more than our current rent to much, much more.
Is owning a home worth that kind of reduction in standard of living, when we're looking at these kinds of homes? What would it take in order to spend another, say, $200 or 250 a month on a mortgage than we're currently spending on rent? Would it be the money that is currently directed into savings or our retirement plans? The money I spend on things like our CSA subscription, farmers' market produce, and organic eggs, dairy, and meat? Our charitable contributions? Or the discretionary cash we spend eating out, seeing movies, drinking lattes, and travelling whenever we get the chance? (Not often enough, sadly.) We could stretch to afford it, but at what cost?
Back in business school, I learned a good bit about fixed costs and variable costs, and how companies or even industries that let their fixed costs get out of control would inevitably get into trouble. (That's why service businesses tend to do so well-- low overhead.) This is how I try to manage the household finances, too, replacing 'discretionary spending' for 'variable costs'. Keeping our 'fixed costs' down lets us sleep easy, without worrying so much (about getting layed off, hurt, sick, etc) because we could cover what we have to on less. Sure, I blow a lot of money on my morning mochas and too many trips to Barnes&Noble, but I could just as easily stop doing that, should I need to. Whereas a mortgage payment is the fixiest of fixed costs.
To top that off, Don and I are still trying our darndest to start a family (some nights we try harder than others, but still). If--when-- we have a baby, I want the option of staying home and not returning to work. I'm not sure yet if that's what I want to do (maybe 95%) but I want the option. To simultaneously increase our fixed costs and decrease our income would be crazy/impossible. I used to believe that buying a home would be a good thing to do before baby comes along, a good first step, but now I'm starting to think they're incompatible. I'd much rather rent with the option of not working, than be forced to stay at my job by an inforgiving house payment.
Then, there's the whole other issue of time. How long are we going to stay in this area? Don's original idea (before the housing market got all depressed) was to buy a house and if we decide to move in another two years, no problem-- we just sell, and pocket the profit. It's not likely that this location, as much as I like it, was ever going to be permanent. (Don has no room for growth in his career and no intention of remaining where his is; he promised this hotel at least three years because they could see from his resume that he tends to move up into a new position every few years and they understandably didn't want him leap-frogging too soon.) The way the market looks right now, though, indicates that nobody should buy that isn't prepared to sit tight on their property for awhile. It's easy to see how a house could lose value in the next 2-3 years and even being able to sell at the exact price we payed would still leave us short the transaction costs of buying a home (thousands of dollars)-- twice, not to mention the hassle and headache of all those moves. The whole idea was to be financially smart and make ourselves some money, not lose.
So as much as I'm dreaming of a little cottage with climbing roses** and a luscious vegetable garden, perhaps it needs to wait. And as much as I'm enjoying Virginia, it's time to accept that we'll be moving again in awhile, ideally to somewhere more affordable***.
* according to Sperling's Best Places, updated 10/2007
** I'm thinking of planting an antique climbing rose at our rental house. I don't think our landlord will mind. Or notice. I mean, what if we're in this same house two years from now, and I still have no garden because I didn't plant anything, thinking that we'd just be moving before it could bloom?
*** And yet, I'm not sure we want to move back to Texas, either. Affordable housing just barely balances with the dry heat, endless pavement, and big business there. Don would like to move someplace closer to his parents (as his parents are a lot older than mine, it's an important consideration) than Texas or here.
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